Autopsy 101

A brief review of the literature is necessary to find that the autopsy practice is at risk. [7] [23] [24] There are many articles documenting its importance, but the autopsy rate continues to decline in the United States and other Western European countries. This decline began in 1971, and JCAHO decided to abolish the minimum autopsy requirement for hospital accreditation. [3, 6, 22, 23] The reasons for continuous reduction, including attitudes toward hospital-managed anatomy, medical staff and families, are complicated. One factor proposed by Devers [28] that researchers and hospital administrators are interested in research appropriate for a federal grant suggests that the government reduces the value of necropsy for high-tech research It may be.

One of the main obstacles to the autopsy requirement is cost. For patients who died in a hospital, necropsy is done at the cost of the hospital. This is based on the idea that autopsy has many benefits for families as well as hospitals. However, even though this benefit is currently related to the cost of many private hospitals, these private hospitals are considered losers and rarely do necropsy.

For patients who died at a special nursing home for nursing, expenses could be a bigger problem. If a patient is hospitalized recently, the hospital may undergo a necropsy. In addition, some funded research projects will recruit certain external patients (eg, AD patients) for necropsy and will pay surgical expenses. However, for most nursing-home nursing home patients, the only option is for families to pay private autopsy expenses, which can cost more than $ 2,000. Currently, this fee is not covered by insurance. Some people tried to use autopsy expenses within the scope of medical insurance or insurance as a quality assurance project, but these efforts failed. At the same time, in an increasingly cost-conscious society, necropsy is still considered a currency loser.

Although the autopsy rate has declined, the advantage of autopsy is still widely documented. In clinical and forensic cases, autopsy helps to accurately identify the cause of death and mode of death. Necropsy can also confirm, clarify, and correct prenatal diagnosis and identify new and recurrent diseases. Therefore, they help protect public health and improve the accuracy of demographic statistics. Necropsy research has proven to be very valuable for the discovery of many diseases and the interpretation of many pathological processes. For example, these studies have deepened and improved the understanding of diseases such as myocardial infarction and heart disease, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), Alzheimer's disease and other dementia.

Pathology is medical profession - disease research. The pathologist studies the disease by performing an operation called a necropsy. Examine the evidence of diseases and injuries in tissues and organs isolated during necropsy and under a microscope. Analysis of bodily fluids (eg blood or urine) taken from the body also provides information to the pathologist about the disease. Forensic pathology is a legal need to apply the principles of pathology and general medical principles to society. Forensic pathologists make a necropsy to ascertain the cause of death. They also participated in an investigation into the situation of death. After understanding these situations, they can decide how to die - nature, accident, suicide, murder or pending